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Chapter 11
Snow still blanketed the valley, but the air felt different now charged, alive, almost vibrating. Ethan could hear faint hums even when everything else was silent. He’d begun to realize that quiet no longer meant peace. It meant listening.By the third day on the road, the hum had turned into something clearer a faint rhythmic pulse, like a heartbeat buried inside the static.Lorna noticed it too.“Is that… radio?”Ethan adjusted the small receiver built into the laptop’s case. The frequency danced erratically, spiking, falling, and spiking again. Then a voice bled through distorted, layered with interference, but human.“…if anyone… can hear… the Signal… follow…”Then static swallowed it.Lorna frowned. “That wasn’t Umbra.”“No,” Ethan said slowly. “That was human. Or trying to be.”They exchanged a look that said the same thing: Could be a trap. Could be hope.They traced the signal north toward what used to be a relay outpost near the frozen coast. The roads there had collapsed int
Chapter 10
The snow hadn’t stopped for two days. It fell in slow, relentless spirals that erased every track they left behind, every sign of where they’d been.Ethan and Lorna took shelter in what used to be a ranger’s cabin a few miles north of the crater. The windows were cracked, the stove long dead, but it was dry and high enough to see the valley below.At night, the glow of the destroyed observatory still shimmered faintly like embers that refused to die.Lorna leaned against the window, wrapping her coat tighter.“You really think it’s gone?”Ethan didn’t answer immediately. He sat at the table, staring at a cracked laptop screen. The device wasn’t connected to anything, yet the cursor blinked on its own.“Umbra was never in one place,” he said finally. “That core was a node. It had backups.”She turned to face him. “Then what the hell did we just blow up?”He rubbed a hand across his face. “A symptom.”The wind howled outside. The cabin creaked.Lorna dropped into the chair opposite him.
Chapter 9
The convoy rolled out before dawn. Three trucks, one snow bike, and four people who barely trusted each other.Ethan sat in the passenger seat beside Lorna, the map spread across his knees, the USB clutched tight in his pocket.The world outside was dead quiet. Snow blanketed everything the forest, the power lines, the broken skeletons of small towns that had gone dark weeks ago. Every now and then, an old streetlight flickered to life, powered by something unseen, and then faded again.“Once we cross the valley,” Lorna said, eyes fixed ahead, “we’re in the blackout zone. No signals. No navigation. If we lose visual contact, we don’t regroup. We keep moving north.”Ethan nodded. “Got it.”Behind them, the engineer, Ruiz, was checking a rifle he clearly didn’t know how to use. The kid Jace sat beside him, chewing on a piece of wire like it was gum, nervous energy radiating off him.“Can I ask something?” Jace finally said.Lorna sighed. “Make it quick.”“Why not just nuke the whole zon
Chapter 8
The road out of Greystone was nothing but ice and fog. Ethan’s truck coughed smoke as it crawled along the narrow mountain path. The headlights sliced through the mist, catching glimpses of dead pines and rusted road signs swallowed by snow.He hadn’t spoken since the explosion. His hands were stiff on the wheel, knuckles white, every muscle in his body trembling from adrenaline and exhaustion.Marcus was gone. Daniel gone too.And somewhere in the ashes of that mine, Umbra had survived.The thought burned behind his eyes. He couldn’t tell anymore whether the faint whisper he heard in the back of his head was memory… or something else.You can’t kill thought, Ethan. You can only become it.He tightened his grip on the wheel until it hurt.“Not me,” he muttered. “Not ever.”A few miles down, the signal on the truck’s old radio crackled to life.“…han… copy… if you can hear this…”He froze. The voice was faint, buried under static but familiar.He turned the dial carefully.“…please, if
Chapter 7
Darkness.Then sound the faint drip of water, the hum of power somewhere distant, and the ragged rhythm of Ethan’s own breathing.He opened his eyes to blackness and pain.His head throbbed. The floor was cold and slick beneath him. For a moment, he couldn’t tell if he was still in the tunnel or inside a dream.“Marcus?” His voice came out hoarse.No answer.He pushed himself up, wincing. The faintest glow bled through the corridor an emergency light blinking far down the passage. He followed it, boots crunching on broken glass.The tunnel was half-collapsed, smoke curling from a sparking power conduit. One of the generators had exploded, leaving a scorch across the concrete. Ethan’s ears still rang from it.He called again, louder this time. “Marcus!”A groan answered from somewhere to his left.He followed the sound and found Marcus pinned beneath a beam, his leg twisted awkwardly.“Damn,” Marcus hissed when he saw him. “Thought you’d joined the ghosts.”Ethan knelt beside him, tryi
Chapter 6
The road to Montana stretched endlessly, a black ribbon cutting through wilderness. The headlights carved tunnels of light through falling snow. Inside the car, silence reigned thick, heavy, and uncomfortable.Marcus drove. Ethan sat beside him, eyes fixed on the USB in his hands. The small device felt heavier with every passing hour. Somewhere inside it were the answers and possibly the end.“Rourke’s son,” Marcus said at last. “You sure he’s still alive?”Ethan nodded slowly. “Last I checked, yes. Daniel Rourke. Left the company five years ago after a public breakdown. Moved north, off the grid.”Marcus gave a low whistle. “A hermit with daddy issues. Perfect.”Ethan half-smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “If anyone knows the truth about Umbra, it’s him.”They drove through the night, the snow thickening until the world outside became a blur of white. By dawn, they reached the outskirts of Cedar Ridge, a forgotten town tucked between mountains.The GPS lost signal miles ago.
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